Author: BlueLight
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Blurb: Spike leaves a final message for Buffy.
Distribution: Fine, just let me know where.
Reviews, constructive criticism requested.
Feedback: Please.

Buffy, Xander and even Willow met them at the airport when they came back from England but they hadn't really talked, not at the airport and not on the ride home. It was too uncomfortable. Now it was a couple of days later and Buffy was waiting at the Magic Box, hoping catch Giles and ask him about the change.

Buffy looked up as Giles and Spike came in. Spike. Should she even call him that? They exchanged Good Mornings and Spike continued on into the back of the shop where he had set up a study site. She gave Giles a half-hearted smile and then asked, "How is he?"

"Better, better," Giles answered. "The weeping has stopped and he's adapting."

A soul. Spike with a soul had meant Spike tortured worse than Glory had tortured him. Except this wasn't Spike. Just like Angel wasn't Angelus. This was someone else, someone new.

"Being in England was a help. The Council was able to provide much need advice and expertise. But he didn't want to stay in England. Too many memories. Too many of Spike's memories, " Giles continued.

"What's he like?" Buffy asked.

"Well, for one thing, he's much quieter. You could hardly shut Spike up but this one is very quiet. Too quiet. I think he's basically shy and deeply introverted. Whatever Spike's faults were, and I'm sure we all recognize he had many, he did have a certain joie de vivre. Now he doesn't. Between the guilt and a deeply sensitive nature there's not much of Spike's exuberance left."

The person whom they had been discussing had come up behind them. He politely cleared his throat to let them know he was there then turned to her and asked, "Buffy, may I speak to you a moment? In private?"

He stood waiting quietly. No jokes. No arch looks. No Spike.

"Sure," Buffy said and followed him into the back. Giles looked after them sadly then turned to his own tasks.

Once they were alone, he turned to face her, saying, "There is something I have to tell you."

"What?" Buffy asked, her curiosity getting the best of her as she watched his face for some sign of the Spike she knew so well.

"I may not be Spike but I have his memories. A lot of those memories are not pleasant even though he remembered very few of his kills. He gave feeding little thought and felt no remorse over it. Spike was a vampire and he lived as a vampire for 120 years. He regretted his vampire life less than you regret your last hamburger," he paused. "But then there was you."

Buffy blushed, thinking of some of the things he might be remembering.

"It's strange that after so long an existence so many of his memories, so many of my memories now, are of you. I think he must have squirreled away a memory of every moment he ever looked at you, every second he ever spent with you, every word you ever spoke to him and even every thought he ever had about you, and put it all in a permanent library, an archive labeled 'Buffy.'"

Buffy felt her heart began to ache as William turned away from her, looking out the window toward the sunlit alley behind the store. Then he sighed and turned back.

"All of the pain and remorse he felt was about you. When he went to the demon for a soul, the soul that effectively ended his existence, he knew what he was doing. He knew that he was committing suicide but he felt it was the only way he could make amends. He knew he would die of his new soul but before he did he left a message for you, left it spread through so much of his brain that I couldn't avoid finding it."

"He wanted me to tell you that he loved you and that he was sorry."